Kim Possible:  Rise of the Machine
by LJ58
Summary: Just another sitch, until Shego stops playing, and really hurts Kim.  Only Kim isn't ready to quit, but her comeback may just spell the end of the world.
1. Chapter 1

_I do not own any Disney character named within, and am only borrowing them for a work of fiction meant for entertainment purposes only. _

**Kim Possible: Rise of the Machine**

**By LJ58**

**I**

"That's it. I have had it," Shego growled as she recoiled from Kim's taunting as they faced one another yet again. "You honestly think you have a chance against _moi_," Shego shouted, wiping her split lip as she rose from the floor, looking far from beat.

She spat blood, and smiled. Coldly.

Kim said nothing as she stood her ground, fists raised, ready to meet any attack head-on.

"Maybe it's time I remind you of something, Kimmie," she growled.

Just that quickly, the green-skinned woman was behind her, slamming a hard palm into the center of her back, sending her sprawling.

"I'm _faster_," she hissed, even as Kim went sprawling.

"I'm _stronger_," she shouted, lifting a large chunk of massive concrete knocked loose earlier by Drakken's powerful ray.

Kim knew Shego noticed when she didn't immediately recover.

"And I'm just _better_ than you."

When she rolled away from that makeshift club tossed at her, she had been unable to move her left leg that well. She couldn't even get to her feet. She was feeling….numb. Her body almost unresponsive. Shego had really hurt her with that last strike.

That palm strike's force had not been held back. Not by much.

She felt real fear as Shego somersaulted forward, and was suddenly kneeling over her, eyeing her with coldly glittering eyes.

"Starting to get the picture, Princess," she sneered. "Because I have one more point to make. Or maybe," she said, holding up two forefingers wreathed in green fire. "_Two_," she mocked sardonically, and drove both fingers down into her shoulders, tearing an agonizing scream from Kim as the plasma-encased digits were driven as much by flame as by strength right into her flesh.

"Get the picture yet," Shego growled down at her as she rose to her feet, staring down at her in contempt.

Kim, one leg, and both arms useless, and her body filled with pain, could only stare.

"Now, I'm not stupid. You'll probably shake this off. Might take a little bit longer this time," she laughed mockingly. "But you'll probably be back. You're that stupid. So let me make a point, Kimmie," she all but spat her name sneeringly.

Leaning down, she whispered into her ear as Kim lay there, bleeding, in pain, and unable to move. Shego smirked as coldly as ever, but the rage was gone now as she pat her cheek, winked, and turned and walked away as she headed out the way Drakken had already gone.

Kim felt her own anger just then, but it was nothing compared to the genuine misery that filled her at the moment. The humiliation. The…..fear.

Shego had almost killed her.

She could feel the cold pressure inside that suggested internal bleeding. She could feel the numbness in her body that materialized in a blunt pressure that made moving even a finger all but impossible. Still, she was experienced enough to know that if she didn't move, if she didn't try, there wouldn't be a next time. She was going to die here.

Not next time.

Here, and now.

She fought the agony that filled her body as she forced her left hand to her right, tears flowing copiously at the sheer effort, and finally brushed a finger against the side of her Kimmunicator. There was no way to lift it to her face. No way she could even try to conjure comprehensible words just then. She pressed the emergency beacon she had only used once in all the time since Wade had built in that feature. And even then it had only been a field test to assure the young genius that it worked.

Now she prayed he was paying attention, because even as her hand slid away, dropping heavily at her side again, she felt her head spinning, and darkness rushing up to claim her. She just prayed it wasn't for the final time.

**KP**

Kim woke inside a pristine, white chamber that reeked of antiseptic.

It was familiar enough that she knew she was not dead.

She gave a faint sigh of relief, knowing that Wade had got the message. She was about to lower her lids again when she saw a faint movement just to her right. She turned her head slowly, and saw a lean, saturnine woman with an eye patch over her left eye.

"Didn't know you cared," she rasped, trying to joke as she saw Dr. Director almost jump to her feet at the sound of her throat clearing.

"Kimberly," she exclaimed, then visibly regained her composure, and schooled her usual expressionless mask firmly back in place. "You had us worried this time around, Agent Possible. Looking for a vacation already?"

"Drakken," she asked, ignoring the heavy-handed attempt at humor.

"Got away. Again. I take it Shego finally stopped playing."

"I think I…..caught her on….a bad day," Kim tried to smile. "So, how bad is it this time?"

She didn't miss Dr. Director's lips when they compressed, or the way her good eye shifted off to one side.

"Just spill it," Kim said, still feeling sluggish, and her body not quite responding as expected despite her awareness of her injuries.

"Kimberly….. She may have paralyzed you this time. And that is the good news."

"What?"

"You've been out over seven weeks," the senior agent, and head of Global Justice told her.

"Just tell me how bad it is," she said quietly, refusing to yield to despair.

"We managed to repair your shoulders. Both of them. However…. You had four cracked disks that had to be removed, and honestly…..ceramic replacements may be state of the art, but they aren't going to hold up to the demands of your…..former lifestyle. Then there's the obvious nerve damage, and the ruptured organs we managed to repair, but….. Well, they still left you…..very fragile."

"And?"

"And, Kimberly, the combined affects left you far more traumatized than what even you can manage, and the initial diagnosis suggests….."

"Dr. Director," she frowned when the woman actually fell silent, and looked away again.

"At the least, you're paralyzed from mid-torso down. Dr. Stein, however, also warned us that you could be….."

"What," she sputtered.

"That the cumulative affects of your combined injuries could have you….literally dying by degrees."

"What," she echoed in horror.

"Kim, the last time we saw Shego use her plasma on anyone the way she did you, they barely lasted two weeks before a very excruciating death. That you're still alive, or even awake, is nothing short of….miraculous just now."

Kim stared hard.

"Shego…..killed?"

"Yes."

"I thought…. I mean, I knew Drakken's plots…..hurt a lot of people. But….Shego?….purposely killed?"

"She _is_ evil," Dr. Director told her quietly.

"Yes," Kim said grimly, remembering those whispered final words in her ear. "She is."

"I'm sorry, Kim. We've got our best people watching your family and friends. Just in case."

"Where am I?"

"Where…? Kim, you…"

"If you put guards on my family, then you think something is up. That means you have me stashed, too. Don't you?"

"You're in one of our top secret medical clinics, so don't worry….."

"I'm not. I need three things, though."

"Kim?"

"You think I'm _done_," she demanded of the woman in a burst of indignation. "That this is over? Let me guess, seven weeks, and Shego is running wild?"

"She's telling everyone you're through. That she…..broke you."

"Not even close," Kim growled, and the look in those green eyes told Betty a lot.

"What do you need?"

"Wade," she said, really wanting to scratch her nose. "Dad, and the tweebs. Oh, actually there is a fourth thing I really need now, too."

"And that is?"

"Scratch my nose," she almost wailed. "It's driving me _nuts_!"

Dr. Director almost smiled as she stepped forward, and using a closely trimmed nail, lightly scratched the pert nose on that pale face.

"So, give? Wade I can almost understand. But your father and brothers? What are you planning?"

"It's just a rough draft. Something that's been floating around in the back of my mind for a while. Only I think this sitch kind of makes it my one real chance just now."

"Do I get to ask," the woman asked her blandly, knowing Kim had a penchant for playing things close to her chest since Stoppable had walked away one day, and left her a solo act.

"Wade first. Then we'll confab. I need to know if my initial idea is viable before I put the rest into motion."

"I'll call him myself at once."

"Thanks, Dr. Director," she sighed. "Don't suppose I could get some coffee in here? And, maybe, these straps loosened. They feel pretty tight."

"Kimberly," she said, following the green gaze to where the sheet covered her body. "You aren't strapped down."

Kim said nothing to that as she just looked stunned, fearful, and angry all at once.

Then she glanced up at her, simply remarking, "That green bitch is going to pay for this one," in a quiet tone.

_To Be Continued…._


	2. Chapter 2

_I do not own any Disney character named within, and am only borrowing them for a work of fiction meant for entertainment purposes only. _

**Kim Possible: Rise of the Machine**

**By LJ58**

**II**

"Honestly, Shego. Now that we have eliminated Kim Possible….."

He caught the expression on his willful sidekick's face as she looked up from her magazine, and cleared his throat as he amended, "That is, now that _you_ have eliminated Possible, wouldn't you think it would be easy to claim my inevitable triumph over those lesser beings who have too long spurned and denied my genius?"

"Well, gee, Doc," Shego snorted. "Let's see. There was the exploding bullet train you set off. The four doomsday rays that malfunctioned after you fine-tuned them to death. Then there was the….."

"All right. All right. My point is….."

"My point is," she cut in. "Pick a plot, and stick with it. It's not like Kimmie is going to come breaking in on us now I've put her out of commission. Considering she was scared enough to wet her pants the last time I saw her," she sniggered, "I doubt she'll be crashing in on us anytime soon."

"She…..wet her…..? I thought I was the only one you made…. Ahem, that is, I cannot believe you finally managed to…..uh, manage her. Have you been holding back all this time?"

"Want to find out, Doc," she murmured slyly, eye green eyes glittering maliciously over the top of her magazine.

"Meh. Not really. Just…..enjoy your break, Shego. I'll be….in the lab. Yes. The lab. Working on…something."

Shego rolled her eyes, and went back to reading all about the new line of 'toys' offered in Jack Hench's new Spring lineup for villainous activities.

**KP**

"Are you serious," Wade asked as she stared at Kim, glanced at Dr. James Possible, and then looked back at Kim.

"It sounds….doable," James told her somberly, but glanced uneasily at Wade. "The question is, however, what about long-term affects? And what about…..?"

"Dad. I'm already dying. Even GJ's best can't tell me how long I have left, but I guess it won't be long judging by the way I feel. So, it's this, or nothing. Tell him, Wade," she said from the bed where the only thing movements she could manage were above her neck. Her body was a lethargic lump. No longer obeying her.

Dr. Stein had miscalculated. Whatever had happened had a greater impact on her than first realized. Even as she had been healing, the degenerative affects of her initial trauma was shutting down her body's nervous system centimeter by centimeter, radiating outward from her lower spine. In time, it would reach her brain, and then she was history.

Literally.

"Still, by wedding the Centurion armor to my cybertronic metal…?"

"I can heal myself from the inside out, dad. The cybertronic reaction can be programmed into nanites that Wade perfected to regenerate and enhance my spine and organs, and maybe even guard against future injury. The Centurion armor will also provide simultaneous internal and external defense against those injuries while hopefully ensuring I'll not only survive to heal, but have a subconscious control of the nanites inside me."

"Still, we have never even gotten close to trying anything remotely similar….."

"Dad. It's my _only_ chance. While I'm still alive, and still have a chance, I'm telling you…. I want this. Now."

"And….us," Jim asked for the pair of them, stunned to find their usually dynamic sister laying on a bed, unable to do more than talk, or blink.

"I'm planning on success guys. Frankly, we've been slowed down lately because a lot of people have been denying Wade access to their satellites. Usually because of national, or partisan issues. But, frankly, just as often because corrupt officials were bribed. So I want you to build a new array. Just for us. One we can tap anytime, from anywhere, and can keep us ahead of the game for once."

"So, you want us to build a top secret spy satellite that no one can hack, and put it in orbit?"

"Exactly," Kim smiled. "Think you tweebs can handle it?"

"You know, someone might try shooting it down if they find out," Tim reminded her.

"Not if you give it its own defenses."

The boy's turned and smiled at each other. "Hicka-bicka-boo," they asked in stereo.

"Hoo-shaaaa," they answered.

"Get on it, guys," Kim told them. "Whatever happens, Wade, and GJ will need it."

Wade and Dr. Possible stared at one another, and then Kim called to her brothers.

"And, tweebs?"

"Yeah," they answered from the door.

"Make sure it can detect _comet-powered _radiation anywhere on the planet," she said grimly.

"No big," Jim grinned.

"Now. Dad?"

James Possible swallowed hard, then nodded. "We have just enough of the cybertronic replicant to do the job, Kim," he finally told her. "I'd have to….sign it out, of course."

"I suggest we keep the experiment a very big secret until we know what happens," Dr. Director finally spoke from across the bed. "This is not going to be knowledge we want shared. Especially if it succeeds," She stated pointedly.

"Exactly," Kim nodded. "Which is why, Wade, I want you to incorporate that new Kimmunicator tech into the Centurion AI's control specs. I want protection from any EM interference in case someone does figure out what we've done."

"So, you're assuming this will actually work," Wade smiled faintly, always impressed by her unswerving optimism. Especially now.

"I told you guys. I've been thinking on new battle armor built along this line anyway for weeks since I got that brainstorm. Then it occurred to me that if we could fully integrate it with my metabolism, I could use it to….save myself. So…..?"

"Give us three days," Wade nodded.

"I only need one," Dr. Possible remarked quietly.

"But _I_ have to reprogram the Centurion armor's AI, and miniaturize it so it fits into a nanite probe," Wade sighed. "Even for me, that's gong to take a few days."

"If you need anything…."

"I have everything I need at home," Wade assured her, the young teen still not completely trusting of certain authority figures. Especially as Dr. Director had already suggested what might happen if she ever caught him tapping her mainframes again.

"Go. The clock is ticking. Remember," Kim told them.

Both left without looking back. Obviously eager to do all they could to save her.

Even as the door closed, Kim gave a long, weary sigh, and seemed to deflate.

"Can you make three days," Dr. Director asked with genuine concern.

"I guess I'll have to try. Won't I," she said quietly, both of them knowing that since waking, her healing had slowed, and her debilitation was spreading. It was getting harder to breath. Harder to eat. Next to impossible to just keep her eyes open at times.

"Hang in there. If anyone can manage….."

"Hey, haven't you heard," Kim said quietly, her eyes closed just then. "Anything is possible…."

"I think I've heard that one," Betty murmured, and put a hand on the slender redhead's shoulder.

**KP**

His name was Ronald Stoppable.

Once the Earth's sole mystical monkey-master.

Before someone unleashed the YoNo again, and a madwoman cloned the restored Monkey Fist before he was literally shattered by the fury of the Han. Now, no less than a half dozen monkey-powered mystic warriors roamed the globe, and every one of them were driven by the dark powers that Monte had emulated and worshipped.

Never mind the planet was facing a grim fate. Never mind that Mankind was facing extinction while most people blithely went their way without realizing what was going on right under their indifferent noses. No one cared, as long as they got their daily meals, or the usual distractions that let them forget their otherwise miserable lives for a time.

He slid through the shadows thinking of past companions.

Allies.

Lovers.

Lost now. All of them.

He had five men behind him now. Five brave people ready and willing to give their lives to try to stop what they knew was coming, and about to arrive. Maybe the last hope of the world the way things were going of late.

"You certain it's here," the lean man with prosthetic legs asked as they waited for a guard to walk past them.

"Middleton Science Center," Ron nodded. "Ironic, don't you think?"

"Yes," Felix Renton noted. "Since I heard that it all started here."

"It did," Bonnie Rockwaller, dressed in the same black camo nodded. "Half the problems in this stupid world started here. With those…._people_."

_Never say the name_.

Ron knew the mantra. Even Bonnie remembered it. Even now.

The wrong ears might hear. And the wrong ears were _always_ listening.

"Now," Ron hissed, and all five ran not for the main building, but the small warehouse to the side. "You two," he turned to hiss at the twins panting behind him after they reached the cover of darkness beside the structure. "You've got the diversion. And if you can stop that new rocket, do it. But don't…."

"We know the drill, fearless leader," one of them grinned, tossing a careless salute. His twin didn't say a word. He had lost his tongue for daring to speak out. If that didn't say something about the state of the world now, nothing did.

But people still didn't listen.

They didn't learn.

"This way," Ron told the two with him. "We have one shot at this, so remember, we have to….."

"We know. We know. Just do what you have to do," he was told. "Because you're the only one of us that can actually _go back_."

Ron nodded, and looked around.

Leaping up, he caught the sill, used one hand to open the window his EM pick unlocked, and then slid inside. A few moment's later, he returned to open the door, and they all raced for the main lab. The lab where the time machine waited.

Mankind's last hope.

Against _Kim Possible._

_To Be Continued…_


	3. Chapter 3

_I do not own any Disney character named within, and am only borrowing them for a work of fiction meant for entertainment purposes only. _

**Kim Possible: Rise of the Machine**

**By LJ58**

**III**

"How is she," Dr. Director asked as she walked into the room where Kim lay recovering from the radical surgery.

"Sleeping," Dr. Anne Possible said, bulling her way past the others to study her daughter's vitals.

When she first found out what they were planning she had been horrified. Even more so when she realized Kim's chances without that mad plan. That the truth had been kept from her until her anxious husband had blurted out his rambling confession still infuriated her.

"Any evidence of regeneration," Wade asked as he walked in behind the nurse that came to check her IV, and vitals.

"No changes as yet. She's….still fading," James said quietly as he studied the pale, gaunt redhead before them.

"The nanites aren't replicating fast enough," Wade remarked after studying something. "We've still only got thirty percent infusion at best."

"What if….? We should focus on the brain," James suggested. "Move the bulk of the existing nanites to her cranium, and leave the rest to manage the bodily injuries while we focus on preserving and repairing her brain?"

"I…. I just don't know," Wade admitted uneasily. For once in his life he was out of his depth, and wasn't sure what to do.

"Flatline," the nurse suddenly gasped even as every one of them gave a startled gasp as the shrill chirp rose from the machine.

"No," Anne cried, and rushed to the equipment, pulling out two small paddles. "Charge, and clear."

"Two hundred," the nurse reported even as the men stood back, staring.

"Again," Anne cried when her daughter's pale, slight body jerked, but did not otherwise respond.

"Two-fifty," the nurse called somberly.

"Clear!"

Again the jerk.

Again the flatline.

"Three-fifty," Anne cried, and pressed the paddles down.

Every one in the room gave a weak gasp as the silence hung over them, and the room, and then, startling them all, the heart monitor gave one tiny chirp.

Anne stood, ears bright and glistening, staring at that thin chest as she dared hope.

The chirp was repeated. Again, and again. Growing stronger. Just as her daughter's chest began to move again.

"I think it's working," Wade exclaimed, staring down at his own electronic device he held before him. "Dr. Possible! The defibrillator….I think it must have jumpstarted the cybertronic replication! I've got fifty… No, sixty…..five percent! More! It's working! It's working," Wade shouted needlessly as they all watched Kim's eyes flutter open, and then stare up at them.

"Okay, either I missed something, or someone's been peeling onions," she murmured quietly, her voice a dull rasp as she eyed the people staring at her with overly bright eyes, and damp cheeks.

"Leave it to our Kimmie," James grinned, his voice suspiciously thick.

"Honey, you gave us all quite a scare," Anne admitted, putting the paddles away.

"Really? I feel pretty good. I guess something worked?"

They all stared as they realized that when Anne reached for her daughter, Kim's right hand had come up on its own, taking that hand and squeezing.

Both redhead's smiled as Anne turned to her husband, and said, "_Now_ I forgive you."

James only smiled.

Wade continued to monitor his body scanner, and Betty walked up behind him, asking, "Is it stable?"

"Aren't you asking the wrong person," Kim asked, despite the fact she shouldn't have been able to hear that soft whisper from across the room.

"You….heard me," Dr. Director asked her quietly, purposely keeping her voice low as she and Wade shared a faint frown.

"Well, duh. I'm not deaf."

"Apparently not," Wade agreed. "Initial analysis indicates you're hearing has been amplified by….twenty-seven percent," he blinked. "Cerebral activity…. It's off the chart. Kim, I think the nanites are actually trying to do more than just heal you. I think they're….improving you."

"Spankin'," she grinned, and raised both hands, making loose fists. "So, when can I get out of this bed, and…"

"Oh, no," Anne told her. "First we're going to make sure you _are_ fine. Then we'll make sure you can handle getting up before we start your therapy. You just survived near death, young lady, and….."

"That's for me," Betty Director said as a sharp buzzing went off. "If you'll excuse me," she said, and nodded at Wade.

She was pulling her personal communicator out of her belt even as she left the room.

"Go, Will."

"We have a sighting, ma'am. Lipski and Shego are definitely moving again."

"Where?"

"London. They just pulled a smash and grab at Smithson, Unlimited. We're still inventorying the damage to ascertain what was taken. Still, you should know that Smithson….."

"Has a reputation for anti-matter research that is beyond cutting edge," Betty stated grimly, cutting off her current senior agent since Possible was out of the loop.

"Exactly. Whatever was taken, it's bound to be dangerous. Especially in their hands."

"Do we have a track on them?"

"No. The French satellite suspiciously malfunctioned just when we tried tapping it to continue tracking."

"Malfunctioned," the woman murmured coolly.

"I suspect the PM might have…..sold us out again. Which suggests they are laying low somewhere in France."

"Remind him of that fact the next time the French ask for our help," Betty snapped in irritation. "Meanwhile, get me a probably location based on their last known heading, and their usual lairs."

"We're working on it. To be honest, with so many of our best on sick leave after that Dementor fiasco….."

"Do what you can. I'll be working on something on my end."

"Understood. Dr. Director…..?"

"What is it, Agent Du?"

"Scuttlebutt says…..Possible may be dying. Is it….?"

"Loose lips, Will. Even our channels get hacked. Let's not give the wrong people the wrong information."

"Understood. I just hope….things are looking up."

"We can always hope," Betty replied grimly, and closed the channel.

**KP**

"….can always hope," the woman's voice faded from the small speaker on the panel before her.

"Guess I hurt Princess worse than even I thought," Shego sniggered as Lars shut off the communications panel after the GJ frequency went quiet.

She was, after all, a smart woman, and once 'Zorpox' had once clued her to listening in on certain frequencies, she had learned to do it with far more efficiency than anyone had yet realized.

"So, it's safe to assume they don't know where we are yet," Lars grinned from behind his Henchco mask.

"Probably not. But I'd stay alert all the same. It wouldn't be the first time that one-eyed harpy played us."

"Yeah, but without Possible, they don't have an agent that can touch us. Well…. You. I heard from Pete that they put over twenty agents in ICU when they tried rushing the loopy dwarf during his last bid for world conquest."

"That's because they're idiots."

"You really think Red is dying?"

Shego smirked. "We can always hope."

"I figured…. Well, some of the boys thought…. You know, you kind of _liked_ her."

When Lars woke up two hours later, his very tender skull still seeping blood down the inside of his mask where he had impacted the stone wall of the mountain lair, he reminded himself to never, ever, upon any circumstances, to repeat that idiocy.

Blinking his eyes, he was still seeing green. And stars.

_Green_ stars.

The Doc was right. Shego was getting touchier every day.

Shego, meanwhile, sat in her own quarters, staring at a magazine she was not seeing, and occasionally giving faint growls as if ready to attack anything that moved.

This was all Kimmie's fault.

All of it.

So what if she was dying? So what if she might already be dead?

She had warned that simpleton again and again that you did not mess with her. That she just wasn't in _her_ class. That she was going to get herself…..killed.

She grumbled again.

"Gah, I'm bored," she muttered, and flung the crumpled magazine away.

No one could match her. No one even came close.

Not since Kim had been put down. Apparently for good.

Okay, so she had gotten a little carried away at the end.

It wasn't her fault.

Little Miss All-That just had to stick her nose into the one thing that didn't concern her. She had to mention _that_ topic. Was it her fault she lost her temper?

No.

Absolutely not.

Okay, maybe threatening to peel her like a grape next time they met was a little over the top, but it had made a good parting shot. Just for the look in those green eyes.

For once, the little bitch hadn't said a word. Just stared at her as she lay there, outdone, and undone.

She grumbled, and started to reach for her magazine even as the lights suddenly flickered, and a strange crackling filled the air.

"Drakken," she hissed, starting to climb to her feet even as instincts even she had long since learned you didn't ignore had her leaping across the room, and hiding behind her bed.

A bed that suddenly vaporized as half the mattress just….vanished as a glowing, translucent white ball of energy appeared right in the middle of her room. The place where she had been sitting was gone. Literally. Chair and all had replaced by that ball of blinding incandescence, and if this was what came from Drew stealing that photon generator, she was going shove it so far up his…

She frowned as she realized the ball was fading, the light with it, but that something, or someone, was kneeling in the small crater now cut right into the hard stone of her bedroom floor.

"Stoppable," she blurted, staring at the tall, lean monkey master who stood up and stared at her.

Completely naked.

"Gah! Put something on! What are you…..?"

The young man stared at her, and it took a moment, but she abruptly realized something.

"You're not Stoppable," she growled, raising her fists as she got a very bad vibe off this one.

"Actually, I am. I'm Ron, _Jr_., Shego," he told her, and she only then realized he had a long scar down the left side of his face. In fact, his entire body looked like a roadmap of serious battle. "And I'm here for your help."

"My….help," Shego sniggered, though she did grab what was left of her now scorched green satin bedspread, and tossed it at him. Or what remained of it. "For what?"

"To save the world."

"Yeah. Riiiiiight. Good luck, buddy, because moi? I play for the other…"

"Shego, if you do not help us stop Kim Possible. This very week. Then in one month, this world is going to be shattered."

"What? You want to try that one again. In English?"

"In one month, if she isn't stopped, Kim Possible takes over the world. And it's not a world even you would like. Not that you will see it. She _kills_ you in three weeks if you don't help me stop her."

Shego frowned. Very darkly.

"Are you kidding me? Listen, whoever you are, Kimmie is probably about three seconds from croaking herself. At the least, she's hiding somewhere hoping she never even sees me again. So you….."

The lean man lunged forward, grabbed her hand before she could launch her plasma, and flung her to the nearest wall, face-first.

She barely caught herself before he drove a heel into the back of one knee, dropped her before him, and covered her body as a second energy sphere began to manifest not inches from where Shego had been standing.

"Doy! What is going on with these loopy….!"

"I was afraid of that. Her AI must have anticipated our tactics, and sent something after me."

"Don't you mean someone," Shego smirked as the light began fading just as before, and a voluptuous, dark-skinned woman rose to her feet to stare at them.

"Targets acquired. Terminate on sight," the voluptuous female said tonelessly as a silver sheen began to cover her entire body.

"Termin….?"

"Run," Ron shouted, and shoved her toward the door even as he raised a blue shield out of thin air just before a bright orange burst of energy exploded from the woman's now silver hand.

"What the hell is going on?"

"Cybertronic enforcer," Ron told her, all but dragging her down the long corridor. "Which way is out, because trust me, that thing is about to _level_ this place."

"Drakken….."

"_Dies_ today. It's already history. Now I know why. But you were going to survive. At least for three weeks. That's why we targeted this point in time. Now, come on," he shouted, even as Shego heard screams, and the very rock around them began to rumble.

"What the hell is going on," Shego demanded, jerking free even as she saw a burst of orange fire behind them.

"You can't face it yet," Ron told her, pleading with her. "You don't know what you're up against yet."

"Okay, I….. Look, let me get Drakken, and then we'll….."

"Shegoooooooooo," echoed through the lair just before a new explosion sounded.

"Drakken's _history_. Now, let's go," Ron told her.

"Drew," she frowned, looking back down the corridor where orange flashes were growing closer as men shouted, screamed, and fell silent.

"I didn't want to do this," Ron said, and drove a glowing blue fist into the back of her skull.

Shego folded in his arms, and he slung her over his shoulder's in a fireman's carry, and fled the lair after he found a Henchco jumpsuit in a room he passed as he followed the air flow he managed to detect with his heightened senses as he left the killing machine behind. He carried the jumpsuit, not stopping to put it on yet as he ran, hopefully, toward a brighter future.

**KP**

"Anything new on the Drakken front," Kim asked, pressing the bar before her as if lifting a Styrofoam prop. That it registered over four hundred pounds seemed not to phase her as the lean redhead that already looked far fitter than she ever had continued to blow through her training regimen with preternatural ease after she had been literally at death's door just two days ago.

"Nothing yet. Don't worry, we'll find them."

"I told you to let Wade help. I don't need him monitoring me nonstop anymore. I'm fine. Better than fine," the redhead grinned.

"Considering the radical design of your new….infrastructure, Kimberly, you'll forgive me if I choose to be cautious."

Kim only smiled.

Wade had already noted that the nanites had created a cybertronic shell inside her own living skin, and around her skeleton, lining her muscles, and her vital organs. Shells within shells. Redundant defensive barriers to ensure than nothing would wound her again.

Her skin, she had noted in passive tests, also reacted to danger by putting out a temporary shell that protected her from heat, knives, energy bursts, and even bullets. She knew, because she had impulsively grabbed one agent's gun, fired it into her palm after several less radical tests, and surprised even herself when she saw the bullet laying crushed in the middle of her silver palm that slowly faded back to normal skin after the danger was over.

She was fine. She knew it. Better than fine.

Now she was ready for Shego. She wanted Shego. And when she found her…..

Well, she wasn't going to be the one laying on the ground bleeding next time.

_To Be Continued…_


	4. Chapter 4

_I do not own any Disney character named within, and am only borrowing them for a work of fiction meant for entertainment purposes only. _

**Kim Possible: Rise of the Machine**

**By LJ58**

**IV**

"Awake?"

"I'm going to tear you….."

"Just calm down," Ron said, holding up both hands as she noted he now wore a familiar uniform which looked odd on the faux Ron. "I had to get us out of there, and away from the enforcer."

"Wait. The….? You called it…. Cyber….?"

"It's a cybertronic cybernetic enforcer. Machine-mind impressed _over_ a human mind. Lately, the Queen has been infusing all babies from birth with her new cybertronic matrix, making them hers to command literally from the cradle."

Shego's jaw dropped.

"Are you saying…..?"

"I'm from twenty-seven years into your future. The one _you_ won't have if you don't listen to me," Ron, Jr. told her bluntly.

Shego swallowed hard.

"Drew is really…..?"

"Very dead. So are you, in _my_ time. But your _son_ is still alive. He's one of our best fighters against Possible's Cybertronic Matrix, and Sky-Net."

"Sky-Net?"

"It's part of the Matrix. Part of the problem. Hopefully, with your help, we can prevent any of it from ever happening. I hope. Frankly, time travel involves a cornucopia of disturbing concepts that even our best tech people admitted made it hard to ascertain if we really do have any chance of stopping Kim. Or changing the timeline. But….it had to be tried. For all our sakes, we had to try."

"So….. You're Ron, Sr. and Kimmie's son?"

"No. My mother is…..someone else."

"Who," Shego asked suspiciously. "Because I don't see the buffoon leaving Kimmie for anyone."

"My mother is a Japanese girl that loved father very much. Enough to risk violating her own family's will to marry him when Kim turned on him."

"Uh-huh. So, Kim actually takes over the world? She actually runs things? In just a few weeks?"

"Faster than you would imagine, but, yes. She does."

"You know, Junior, I think you and I had better talk. Tell me everything. From the beginning."

Ron nodded. "It began three months ago," he told her. "When you killed Kim Possible."

"Huh?"

**KP**

"This is useless," Kim huffed, and stopped running in circles on the enclosed track in the safe house that she had already ascertained was somewhere underground, likely located in the Pacific Northwest from what she could ascertain from the strata of the stone walls around her. "When am I going to get some real action?"

"For now, we're still waiting to hear from Shego," Will Du told her.

"Don't you mean Drakken," she smirked.

"Drew Lipski was killed four days ago," he admitted. "It looks like Shego did it."

"Shego…._killed_ Drakken," Kim frowned.

"Every inch of his body was badly burned by intense heat and radiation. Every one of the henchmen with him were similarly injured. I doubt there's anyone else that could have managed that feat."

"Wow. Guess he finally pushed her too far, too," Kim remarked without much sympathy.

"There were forty-seven other bodies on location, too," Will told her. "It's possible, no pun intended, that Shego may well have become dangerously unstable."

"All the more reason to get me back in the field," she complained. "What about the tweebs' satellite? Have they launched it yet?"

"Not yet. It's still awaiting federal clearance…."

"By the same people that sent me in _blind_ on my last four missions," Kim demanded.

Will said nothing to that.

"I am starting to wonder which side you, and they, are on, Agent Du," Kim said, and Will frowned, wondering if he was seeing things as it looked like her eyes were shimmering with silver flecks. "So, whose side are you on?"

"I'm on the side of _Justice_, Miss Possible," the man told her firmly.

Kim sniggered at that.

"You so sound like Hego just now. What does he say about Shego's rampage?"

"He doesn't know yet. We're keeping Team Go out of the loop on this one. No one knows about her apparent rampage beyond GJ's investigating team."

"And we're still here, twiddling our thumbs? Waiting while she could be killing even more innocent people?"

"I doubt Drew Lipski…"

"You know what I mean," Kim spat, and Will frowned, knowing that her eyes really were silvery now as she gave him a curt glare, and turned to the locker room. "Forget it, errand boy. I'm so out of here. It's obvious that if anything is going to happen, I'm going to have to do it myself."

"Now, hold on…"

One moment Will had been reaching for her shoulder.

The next he was flying across the width of the gym, and barely avoided smashing headlong into the hard wall. He managed a less than graceful tumble to dissipate his momentum, leapt to his feet, and turned to face….. Nothing.

Pulling out his communications device, he thumbed the side, and said, "Get me Dr. Director. Oh, yes," he replied at static-filled response. "I believe you can say it's an emergency," he said.

**KP**

"In three weeks time, the very day you die, Kim's brothers launch the self-aware, cybertronically based satellite they call S-1. Sky-Net almost immediately links with the cybertronic AI in Kim's own brain….."

"Wait. She has a computer in her head now?"

Ron just nodded. "Trust me. She's got far more. Or she will. Once linked, Kim's mind and the satellite collaborate on a way to 'save the world' from itself. Logical, yet twisted in her own unique perspective, Kim decides to _force_ order upon the world. Order that is molded after her own unique transformation. Middleton is about to become ground zero for what will become a pandemic of cybertronic origin. It all begins right after she kills you."

"Huh?"

"With the satellite guiding her, she infuses every world leader, and major celebrity with the same cybertronic nanites that fill her. Making her, and trust me on this, unbeatable. The difference is, once she's 'infected' a host, they don't have a computer mind. They become….drones. Mindless automatons that serve only her will."

"Like that…thing back in the lair," Shego frowned as they sat in the middle of a clearing next to the hover-pod Ron had 'borrowed' in their escape from the lair.

"Exactly. That woman used to be one of her best friends. In….four weeks, she is just one of many that is made over. Now, she's a mindless thing. A machine. One that will not stop until she fulfills the commands of her maker."

"Which is….."

"To kill us."

"O-kaaaay. But she obviously blows it, because you said Kimmie kills me….. And I did _not_ just try to argue I can't die yet because I'm going to be killed later."

"Like I said; a cornucopia of disturbing concepts. Still, the point is that we're already changing history here."

"We are?"

"Yes. History said that after you escaped the scene of Drew's death you were found by local law enforcement. Only our records state that GJ picked you up, and held you for two weeks. It is after you break out that Kim tracks you down, and…. Well, you know that part by now. The point is, you weren't found by GJ this time, so you aren't being held. So, in essence, we've already proven we _can_ change things. That gives me hope."

"Wait," she frowned. "So, if we succeed, don't we end up…..destroying your world?"

"Honestly, I hope we do. It's not a very nice place," Ron said quietly.

"So you said. Just how did you and your rebel friends escape Kimmie's bots if she's got the whole world in her fist?"

"By accident. There were still a lot of people living off the grid. Dad was one of them. A lot more went underground once they saw the writing on the wall. But as I also said, now she's taking babies at birth. It won't be long before there isn't a single free human being on the planet. You either join her, or die. We have to stop that. Here, and now."

"Okay, while I'm not really the heroic type. Not these days. How? Because by your story, I get the feeling I don't have a chance against Kimmie in the here and now."

"In three weeks, you don't. If we find her now. _Before_ she perfects her control over the Cybertronic tech in her body, we can hopefully defeat her before that happens. Especially since you'll be having my help this time. Also, we have to stop that satellite launch. It's crucial. So…"

"I get it. Spank Kimmy. Blow up a rocket. Save the world. You would not believe how much like déjà vu this seems to me right now," she sighed, shaking her head.

"I can imagine. Dad told me a lot of stories."

"I'll bet. So, if you're his kid, do you have the whole monkey-mojo thing going for you, too?"

"I took on the mantle of monkey master a year ago after dad died facing down an army of enforcers in Tokyo," Ron, Jr. said so quietly that Shego felt a weird shiver etch her spine.

"I don't get it," she finally said. "If you could time travel, why not just go back a little further, and stop her from ever…..?"

"There were….complications. If it could have been done, it would have been. All I can tell you is that we have one chance to stop the nightmare I know from happening, Shego. Now, I need to konw. Are you in, or out?"

"Considering I've got three weeks to live according to you, I think 'duh' is a suitable response. But…? Couldn't you….? We….? Go back later, and maybe….save Dr. D?"

"Dad always said you guys were closer than….."

"Bup, bup, bup, bup. I just need him to sign my last check. I haven't been paid this month," she frowned darkly at him. "It's not like I really…..care," she said quietly.

"Right. Okay, here's my plan. According to what I know…"

"Who's the dad?"

"What?"

"I just realized. You said _my_ kid is helping you fight Kimmie's future. Who's the dad? And how the heck did I even have a kid if I'm…..going to die?"

"I don't know the details. It's been assumed you were….already pregnant. I do know that after your death, the fetus was removed by Kim's scientists, and gestated in an artificial womb she created. Why she did it, no one knows. But he eventually rebelled against her control, and joined us."

"She didn't….infect him," she asked.

"He has your powers. The nanites can't survive in his body."

"Oh. What…. What was he named," she asked quietly.

Ron sighed. Glancing away, he looked back after a moment, and said, "We don't know his name. He always told us to just call him….._Pain_."

"Pain?"

"I think it was his way of expressing his…..joint legacy. And his purpose in life."

Shego only nodded. "I never thought I'd have kids," she murmured. "My genetics…."

Ron said nothing to that.

"When I was younger…. I used to dream about a family. I was going to call my daughter Sharon, and my son….."

"_Move_," Ron shouted, a burst of orange flame exploding between them as he leapt up shoving her one way as he somersaulted backwards, and then landed in the trees.

"How did she find us," she protested even as they moved.

"Trust me. _It_ can find you anywhere after it's programmed to do so," Ron told her, jumping out of the line of fire again.

"You said I can melt these things," she demanded, just rolling backward, and rising gracefully to her feet as she moved herself the moment the monkey-master shouted. "So why don't I…..?"

"You can't penetrate their armor. Your only chance is when it's still mostly human. The nanites are vulnerable. The armor it wears isn't," Ron said. "So get ready."

"For what," she demanded, seeing the sunlight glittering off the silver body headed right for them even as she ducked another energy blast flung at her.

"Your chance to take out the nanite controllers," Ron hissed as he leapt forward now, his hands suddenly holding a glowing, blue sword that materialized out of the very air as if it had been there all along just waiting for him to reach for it.

"Now," he shouted, spinning away from the faltering metallic female whose arms had just been sliced off at the elbow.

To Shego's horror, the female bled silver.

"Now! Target the arms! Before she regenerates!"

Shego howled, and unleashed raw plasma through her hands as she saw to her horror that the arms were starting to actually regenerate before her eyes. She pinpointed the raw wounds, and sent the plasma surging up through the stumps as the silvery body began to twitch and spasm, and then the silver armor cracked and began to fall away like dead skin.

By the time the body fell, only a smoldering, dark shape was left that whimpered and stared with dark eyes up at them.

"Oh, my God," Shego hissed, staring at the seared body as thick lips tried to move, and she knelt down to listen.

"Termin…. Term…. Te-Te….T….."

Then a faint hiss, and the woman was gone, her dark eyes empty.

"You see," Ron asked quietly. "Now, the arms. We can't let it have anything left to use to regenerate," he said, indicating the severed limbs that lay nearby that did indeed look as if they were trying regenerate new arms beyond their stumps.

To someone that had seen a lot of mad science, it was still disturbing.

She flash-fried the silver limbs, and nothing but smoldering meat was left before she stopped. "Look," she said, turning away from that stomach-churning sight she wished she weren't still smelling. "Why not call the harpy. Someone? I mean, GJ would be quick to….."

"Global Justice will help her take over the world. For all we know, they're probably already being infiltrated and subverted as we speak. In fact, their first victims are _your_ brothers. Along with anyone else that might have stopped Kim's rise to power."

"My brothers…..die, too?"

"Still want to make jokes," Ron asked, his sword gone, but his resolve unshaken.

Shego found herself staring at the dead woman, and shook her head.

"What do we do," she asked quietly.

Ron nodded. "I have a plan. But it's going to be dangerous."

"When you say…..?"

"We could both get killed early. That's why we take out the satellite first. _Then_ move on Kim."

"All right. Count me in," she nodded firmly. "Let's stop this nightmare. Now."

They headed for the hover-pod, and Shego grimaced at the smoking hole in the engine compartment.

"Looks like a long walk," Ron sighed.

"From what you've been telling me, we'd better make it a quick run."

He nodded. "You're right. Let's go," he said, and led the way through the forest even as the sun began to set.

**KP**

"I'm leaving," Kim told the sentry as she walked to the lift that led to the surface after figuring out she was in an underground base. "Open up."

"Sorry, Miss Possible," one of the two Marines told her. "Not without orders."

"You have orders," she huffed, standing there in a blue, GJ jumpsuit since she didn't exactly have anything else to wear just then. "From me."

"Sorry, ma'am…"

His wail followed him over thirty feet to the end of the long corridor before he hit the end of the underground walkway, and the sickeningly audible snap of fragile bone sounded in the silence as his cry was abruptly cut off.

"How about you," Kim asked with a chilling smile as the Marine gaped at the small, slender redhead who had just tossed his comrade aside like a child's toy with deadly results.

"If you want out," he said somberly, and turned and keyed in the security code. "I'm not going to argue," he assured her as the panel lit up, and the hum of the elevator's machinery preceded the arrival of the lift car.

"Smart man," she told him smugly, and stepped inside as she stepped into the lift after the doors opened, and pressed the only button available. "Sorry about your buddy, but I'm feeling a little impatient. I'm _really_ late for a very important rematch," she informed him.

"Yes, ma'am," he said stoically as the doors closed.

And he stabbed an emergency override button.

By the time the car reached the surface checkpoint, it would be full of enough gas to knock down an elephant. And the entire security team up top would be waiting for the redhead. And to think that Simon, his now dead colleague, had thought this was an easy post. Just sit and watch one little girl that wasn't going anywhere.

He should have known better. When someone goes through all the trouble to hide someone like Kim Possible, it isn't because she's not a problem. "Sgt. Weems," he called through the hard-line intercom, radios useless this deep. "Do you have her? Sgt. Weems?"

It was taking too long to answer. Still, the lift was moving back down now. They must have regained custody of the woman, and even as five men moved toward him from down the corridor after his silent security alarm put the base on alert, one man looked at Simon with more than a little concern.

"Corporal Thomas, what happened," the NCO in the lead frowned back at Simon as the lift continued to descend.

"Possible, sergeant," he told him. "She walked up, tossed Simon down the hall like a doll, and demanded to be let out. I let her go topside, then gassed her once she was on her way up. Only I can't raise Sgt. Weems. No one up top is responding."

The man frowned, and made an immediate decision.

"Safeties off," he told the squad, thumbing the switch on his own sidearm. "Shoot to kill."

"You want us to shoot…..?"

"Thomas, if we're lucky, we'll slow her down," the man spat. "But I was in the briefing with GJ. If she's half what they claim, we'll be lucky to hold her off until real help gets here."

Allen Thomas, who signed up for a steady check, not fame and glory, gaped at him.

"What….happened to her," he rasped even as the controls chirped, and the doors started to slide open.

"Stand ready," the NCO hissed, and every weapon was trained on those doors as they opened.

Allen gasped as they slid open, and two men turned aside, vomiting.

The NCO turned chalk-white, and bolted, shouting, "Clear that lift. I have to get the word out!"

Allen Thomas just stared helplessly at the elevator car crammed with dead and dying men who were piled on and around each other in ways that seemed anatomically impossible, and beyond painful. Thomas looked at a few pale faces still semi-conscious, whimpering in pain, and passed out cold. He never heard the ironic call for a medic.

_To Be Continued…_


	5. Chapter 5

_I do not own any Disney character named within, and am only borrowing them for a work of fiction meant for entertainment purposes only. _

**Kim Possible: Rise of the Machine**

**By LJ58**

**V**

Kim wasn't tired.

Ironically, she wasn't even thirsty.

That was despite the fact she had calculated the best route of escape from the mountain stronghold, and cut directly across country. That had been twenty hours ago through some of the region's most wild terrain imaginable.

No big.

Well, there had been that little ish with that grizzly. But after finding out she could handle lifting four tons, and still fight off a few squads of stubborn Marines that wanted her to forestall her vindication with a certain ill-tempered mercenary, the bear was no problem.

Okay, she had gone a little overboard with tossing the one guy. And the guys on the surface, too. But they had tried to gas her, and then shoot her when she walked out of that gray fog to make one of the guys actually wet himself.

Frankly, that part was funny.

Not so much when they started shooting her. That was when her impromptu testing was validated as her entire body was covered in a split second by a silvery shell that protected even her hair. Her jumpsuit was shredded in places by the deadly fire, but when they finally stopped, she wasn't so much as nicked.

Still, she was…..annoyed.

Frankly, stuffing them into that stupid elevator still half filled with gas had been an impulse. And the new tech in her body made it easy to do. She was stronger and faster than ever. And, apparently, all but untouchable.

Just let Shego try taking her now.

That green witch was going down.

Hard.

She wasn't paying much attention to the time it took her to cross the rough terrain and finally reach the small house in the foothills where a single, narrow lane led off toward civilization, but strangely enough her mind had the precise time to the second. Twenty-two hours, nineteen minutes, and forty-seven seconds.

Yet she still wasn't hungry, thirsty, or tired.

Wade's upgrades definitely rocked.

Looking down at her body, she willed the last of the silver epidermal protection to fade, and with it, she noticed just a degree of those concerns that had not bothered her returned. Not enough to matter, but they were there.

Well, that was easily managed she decided as she headed for the small house below her.

Not a ranch, she noted. More of a cabin. A hermit, or someone who wanted to get away from the rush, probably. Well, that was her. She was getting away from the rush, too. Until she could contact Wade, and find her prey. It would have been nice if she had been able to reclaim her Kimmunicator, but apparently Dr. Director had taken it with her when she left earlier.

Dropping from the last cliff that was only a mere fifteen feet, she landed gracefully, and headed down the sloping meadow toward the cabin. A hot meal, and maybe she could beg or borrow a lift into town. From there, she could get back to Middleton, and start the hunt for Shego. She still wasn't sure if she bought that rampaging Shego bit that supposedly left Drakken dead. Frankly, she was pretty certain Shego actually liked him too much for a stunt like that.

Something else was going on. Not that it mattered. Shego had tried to put her down. Tried to destroy her. Well, she was in for a surprise. This time, it was the comet-powered bad girl that was going down. She just had not decided if she wanted to make it permanent yet, or not. A part of her genuinely wanted to see her face just before that final blow. Another part of her wouldn't mind letting her live, if only in the same sorry condition she had been left. Of course, the difference would be that Shego wouldn't be granted the second chance that she had gained.

She smiled at the thought of that tough, sardonic woman laying at her feet. Helpless to act. To move.

Still, whatever happened, she had to be dealt with. She wasn't sure why, but she sensed that as she was, she was virtually untouchable. Invulnerable! Except for one tiny design flaw her analytical mind had detected when she was going over Wade's schematics in her head.

Shego's raw plasma might still just yet be able to neutralize and even destroy her nanite protectors. If that happened, she might end up right back where she was. Flat on her back, and seconds from death. She couldn't allow that. She wouldn't allow that. For her own sake, and the sake of the world, Shego was going down.

Unlike Dr. Director, she was unwilling to wait, either. First she got in touch with Wade, and then they found Shego.

What followed, to her mind, was inevitable. She would hit Shego hard and fast before the woman could even think of defending herself.

This time, Kim Possible was going to put her down first. It was simply the logical thing to do. She would do it, too.

Just as soon as she got a hot meal, some more clothes, and a ride into town she thought as she approached the back door of the small cabin before her.

**KP**

"She….got away?"

"It's worse than you think, Wade," Betty Director's stern face told him, feeding him the security footage. "From what my people reported, she tore into three squads of Marines that tried to stop her like they were kindergarten bullies. You can see how much of a chance they stood. Tell me you have a failsafe, mister, because I think Kimberly may have just gone _rogue_."

"Kim…..?"

"Listen to me. Could anything in that procedure have had some kind of affect on her, Wade," she demanded of him. "Anything?"

"Theoretically…"

"Wade," she all but growled at him.

"There was just a one in trillion chance….."

"Wade, if we don't know what happened, we don't know how to handle her. Or help her. I need you to be honest with me. Because Kimberly isn't herself. She has just _killed_ nine men, and injured over a dozen more, and all without batting an eye. Right now, we think she's only aimed at Shego. But she's already proven she will eliminate anyone she perceives as getting in her way. I need you to be honest with me. What are we dealing with here?"

"Remember she wanted the Centurion armor incorporated into her nanite control interface to keep control of the cybertronic replicants in her," the young man finally asked.

"Right. Are you saying….that the AI is doing this? Controlling her?"

"The AI isn't _fully_ sentient. Even the old armor used only adrenalin-fueled emotion to power the systems."

"Then what are you saying…..?"

"I think there is a chance it _overwhelmed_ Kim's mind, and is being fueled by her _subconscious_ desire to find, and defeat Shego. If it has overwhelmed her conscious mind to the degree….theorized," he grimaced as he saw the end of the footage that was obviously unedited for his benefit. "Then…."

"Yes?"

"God help anyone that gets in her way," he admitted.

Dr. Director swore. "Find us Shego, Wade. Right now, putting those two together may be the only way we have to stop Kim Possible. Since we both know our initial tests indicate you might well have made her virtually unstoppable!" Wade grimaced again at that one. "Actually, there's still a slight chance Shego could stop her."

"Tell me everything," she demanded.

He did. Betty didn't look any more pleased.

"Are you honestly telling me that Shego may be the only person on the planet that can stop her. But only by _killing_ her?"

"I'll be the first to admit that a lot of this is still theory. Still, the EM shields we installed are the best available. Right now, I don't think we have anything else that could stop her."

"And you went ahead with the procedure knowing that?"

"I never thought Kim would end up becoming a danger to us herself," he sputtered. "She's always been…."

"Obsessive, and constantly driven to prove herself _better_ no matter the challenge," the one-eyed agent suggested.

Wade found he had nothing to say to that.

"You'd better hope we find Shego in time to brief her. Just tell me how she can stop her."

"She'd have to….take her by surprise. If she can….neutralize her nanite systems before her bio-armor activates, she has a chance."

"And if not?"

"Then, Dr. Director. God help us," he said quietly. "Because just now, I have the feeling we just turned my best friend into a monster. I just hope that after she defeats Shego, she will regain her senses, and….."

He was talking to a blank monitor.

"Yeah," he murmured, and turned to another monitor around him, and brought up his schematics. "Surely there is something else. Something we might have overlooked. After all, there's always a flaw. _Always_."

Carefully reviewed and unedited seasons of Captain Constellation had taught him that much, if anything.

**KP**

Kim slowed the old truck down as she neared the small airport just outside of the small town.

The cabin had proven empty, but the cabinets were full, and whoever had been staying there must have not been a hermit. Not with enough clothing to outfit a family of nine in all sizes. She was currently wearing a green flannel shirt with a pair of jeans not too snug on her coltish frame. Twenty-two, and she was still the same lean, wiry girl she had been back in high school. Which, she knew, drove Bonnie Rockwaller nuts after she had come back from her affair with Junior proving just how much the good life could really take a toll on you.

She had been fighting to drop all those pounds that led to Junior dropping her in the first place, but just then Kim found that far more funny than before. Yet she had just emptied the cabin's larder, eating everything she could find, literally, and even suffering through some of her own cooking to gulp down the frozen food she had found in a small freezer. She had literally been unable to stop eating until there was nothing else to eat.

She considered the town as her own mind pondered her metabolism's weird reactions. Not that it mattered. She was feeling stronger than ever, and something tickled the back of her mind, giving a healthy nudge to her instincts that suggested that even here, someone might already be looking for her. If she just blindly drove into town, she might find herself surrounded before she could blink.

It's what she would do.

Pulling off into the forest just outside the small, local airfield beyond the town's borders, she found the binoculars taken from the cabin, and walked over to where she had a fairly unobstructed view of the airport.

Three buildings. One small tower. Two hangars, and four buildings if you counted the maintenance shed.

One hangar was closed, but she saw three helicopters, a crop duster, and a small single engine setting to one side of the single, narrow airstrip. The tower was lit, but she saw no one in it just then. The maintenance shed was closed up, too, but there was a light burning in a small window toward the back.

No obvious presence beyond that.

No military vehicles. No armed guards.

In short, very suspicious considering how close she was to the base behind her.

Still, she needed a ride. Middleton was still a long way from here. She glanced into the sky, smiled, and chose to wait.

The sun was almost down, and the darkness would give her the edge. Especially if she lured off any unseen watchers by setting a fire off to one side of town, and let them run off to check it out while she approached the airfield from another direction.

Time to get ready, she mused somberly as she went back to the truck to see what she had in it that would help her set her diversion.

**KP**

"We'd better rest," Ron, Jr. told her as they neared the edge of a large plateau. "You're getting tired, and we don't want to risk climbing this cliff in the dark."

"I've managed worse."

"Not as tired as you are," he pointed out. "I'm betting you're just running on steam. Let's rest, I'll find us something to eat, and we can start over at dawn fresh. We can't rush blindly into anything here, Shego. If we do, it's more than our lives at risk here. Frankly, just facing Kimberly will be tough enough. We can't do it if we're running on fumes."

"Fine. Fine," she grumbled. "But I'm not eating twigs and roots. I'll tell you that now," she huffed.

"Start a fire. A small one. I won't be long," he said as he walked back to a small clearing just inside the trees away from the cliff's edge. "This should be a good place to lay low. Shelter from the wind, and no one will spot us if we're smart."

"I guess you've done this before?"

"Far too often," Ron admitted, and gave a faint smile. "I shouldn't be long. I noticed some game trails earlier."

"Game trails," the green-skinned woman frowned, but he was already gone.

"We need to eat," he had said before disappearing.

**KP**

"Any sign of her?"

"Not one clue. But the forensics team in Drakken's lair found something….odd," Will told her as he handed her a file with his good arm, his left in a cast, and held up by a sling.

"What….is that," she frowned, eyeing the photographs that showed the curious craters in the spacious room that had been Shego's. One in the center of her now ruined bed. The other across the room where it looked like it had carved out a matching section in the wall.

"We don't know. But the rock was crystallized at the subatomic level as if by an extremely powerful energy discharge."

"Shego?"

"No. As you know, Dr. Director," the agent told him as he flipped the photos over to show the first page of the report, "Shego discharges more of a heat-based energy. These craters weren't melted. They were….vaporized, for want of another term. As if something encountered them with such force it simply disintegrated the matter around them."

"Is it possible that Drakken's work did this?"

"While he stole some dangerous equipment from Smithson, he did not actually acquire any of the few stores of anti-matter. Apparently, even he won't touch that stuff. There is more, too. The dead we found weren't burned by Shego's plasma, but by a highly concentrated liquified accelerant simliar to a gelatinous napalm. One that ignites with air."

"You're kidding me," she growled.

"I wish I were. It looks like someone else attacked the lair, and likely killed those people. For once, I have to admit that Shego looks...innocent this time."

"Then what do we have here, Agent Du," she asked, gesturing at the report.

"I don't know," he admitted, and let her take the file to read the full report. "I just don't know."

**KP**

"This is all my fault," Shego sighed, staring at the fire with tears in her eyes as she tossed the bones from her simple meal Ron had provided them by hunting a few fat hares to roast. "I overreacted, and I forced her into becoming that…..thing."

"Some say it might have been….inevitable. Destiny. I'd like to know, though. Just what drove you to attack her like that the day you met?"

"She….said something. That was all. Something stupid," Shego admitted.

"You're telling me this all started because of….an insult?"

"You know how it is in a fight," she sighed, staring at the fire, feeling worse than ever as she absorbed all they were facing. And why. "Give and take. A taunt. A slap. Retorts that dig a little deeper every time. Kim…. Kim didn't slap me that day. She broadsided me."

"May I know how," Ron asked her quietly, wondering what could have set off the woman, and wondering why Kim told her such a thing when the woman his father told stories about was far removed from the monster he had come to know.

"She was furious about Dr. D's last screw-up interfering with her life," Shego finally told him, sitting quietly for a moment as she recalled what had happened that day.

"Go on," Ron urged her as they sat under the stars, hidden by the darkness, and the brush piled around them.

"I made a comment about her life being pretty boring if she ran out on it every time Drew sneezed," she sighed. "She told me maybe we needed to get a life of our own. Then….. You know how I mentioned my issues about children?"

"Right."

"Well, I said something to the affect at least she had a life. That I wasn't likely to have one since I couldn't ever have children. Or….that's what I had always thought."

"I take it Kim didn't sympathize?"

"She laughed in my face," Shego said, tears sparkling in her eyes as she shook her head. "Laughed, and said at least her kids wouldn't have to worry about mine. That it was…. It was just as well I didn't have any, since I would….probably be a lousy mother."

"You lost it," Ron murmured.

"I lost it," she nodded, and wiped her eyes with a sleeve. "Even I couldn't believe how far I went that day. Still, I thought she'd bounce back. I mean, she always did. I just didn't expect….."

"For her to end up turning into a Cybertronic monster?"

"Right," she murmured. "So, Monkey-boy…. That is…. Stoppable bailed on her, and found another woman. I wouldn't have guessed that one, either."

"By your timeline, they broke up two months ago. It's how I knew it was safe for me to return here. My father is on…..a mystic quest…..elsewhere. One that gives him better control over the mystical forces he commands. Just not in time to stop Kimberly," he said with genuine regret.

"Say, what if you called him back…..?"

"Then he would have failed his quest, and ended up just another victim of the Cybertronic plague. Or he would slain outright. As I am still here, I have to assume that will not happen. Has not happened."

Shego shook her head. "You're right," she sighed. "Time travel can hurt your brain."

"To say the least," he said, shivering lightly.

"Cold?"

"I may be a monkey-master," he admitted, "But I'm still human. I don't have cosmic energies surging through my blood the way you do."

Shego stared at him, sighed, then surprised them both by holding out an arm. "Come here," she murmured. "We don't need the answer guy getting sick before we try to save the world. Because I'm pretty sure I'd get lost fast without you to show me the way. And I'd just as soon survive the next few weeks. _And_ beyond," she added firmly.

"So would I, Shego," Ron, Jr. told her quietly, letting her put an arm around him as they leaned together as her body's preternatural energies warmed them both.

"Had enough," he finally asked when he removed the last of the roasting hares from the spit.

"Yeah," she told him. "That last one filled me up."

"I'll just save this for breakfast," he told her, going to hang the meat from a branch he reached by leaping up, and scrabbling into the high branches. He came down, and Shego didn't say a word as he returned to her casual embrace.

"We'd better rest," he told her, banking the fire. "We need to move out as early as we can."

"I know," she murmured, and lay back with him next to her.

"So, if this works, what then?"

"Honestly? I don't know. We still have some serious odds against us. If we do succeed, I'm not even sure how that affects me since I'm already here. Maybe I disappear. Maybe I cease to exist. I don't know. I only know any risk is worth trying to save our world. Even if it does mean my death."

"Now you sound like your dad," she murmured.

"Thanks," he murmured, and eyed her before closing his eyes. "Shego. Thank you for trusting me. This would be a lot harder without you."

"Somehow, I doubt it'll be too easy either way," she grumbled.

"No. It won't be," he admitted.

Shego had nothing to say to that.

"Hey, Ronnie. Think if would help if I apologized to her," she suddenly blurted.

He only gave a grim chuckle.

"Yeah, that's what I thought, too," Shego sighed.

_To Be Continued…_


	6. Chapter 6

_I do not own any Disney character named within, and am only borrowing them for a work of fiction meant for entertainment purposes only. _

**Kim Possible: Rise of the Machine**

**By LJ58**

**VI**

Ron ran alongside Shego, easily pacing her as they closed the distance as they headed toward their goal.

Middleton.

Getting there, she knew, was the easy part. Finding and stopping those twin terrors from launching a rocket that would help damn the world was going to be something else. Even Ron didn't know if they would already be convinced to listen or not. True, he claimed they joined his father in the future, but that was years away.

Facing them now, with a future yet to be born, he just didn't know if the boys would pay any heed to them.

He intercepted Shego's sidelong glance now and then, and knew what she was wondering. Or at least thinking about. Last night had been…..surprising. They had almost dozed off next to each other when she had abruptly turned over, and curled up into his arms. He had heard stories of Shego from his father growing up, and yet never once had she ever seemed so…..vulnerable in those tales. If anything, she was the sort to be the last to run. The last to give up a fight. She was an unyielding creature in his mind, and even the story of her death had her spitting in Kim Possible's eyes at the last.

Even more surprising, however, was when he realized she had cried on his shoulder. Quietly, and more than surreptitiously, but she had cried. He found it strange, and yet even that was not so surprising as when she just looked into his eyes, and kissed him.

He knew even then she was seeking comfort. A confirmation of her own worth. An affirmation that she was alive, and might just stay that way. Even after they made love, a surprisingly tender and intimate moment that caught him complete off guard after the woman turned to him.

He didn't turn away, though, and found her to be a very gentle lover, which surprised him all the more.

"Middleton," he stopped on the hillside, and looked down at the valley at the sprawling town before them, forcing himself to put those other thoughts aside. "Now it gets hard."

"We both need to change," Shego realized, eyeing his red Henchco uniform. "We'll stand out like a neon sign if we try to go into town like we are."

"You're right," he agreed. "Ideas? Because I'm pretty sure I don't have any period cash."

Shego grinned now, her eyes sparkling as she said, "I guess we get to do this my way," as she led him down toward town.

**KP**

Kim smirked as she raced back to the old truck, and knew she had five minutes before the jury-rigged firebombs she had set would go off, and distract anyone from her real position as she raced back to the airport.

She was pulling up into the clearing just beyond the airfield when she watched troops pour into a hidden trucks that came out of one hangar, and head for the far side of town even as the fires she set began to grow, and light the far side of town. She smirked, thinking how predictable they were even as she waited for the last of them to go, and things to settle down.

She counted down two minutes after the two trucks left, then using the tower for cover, walked toward the small aircraft parked to one side of the field. She climbed into the cockpit, eyed the simple controls, and began to flip switches as she didn't bother with a safety check, but just turned over the engine, and smirked as she watched the dials swing to life, and assured herself it had enough fuel for where she wanted to go.

For while she had been fixed on getting home, it occurred to her that without Drakken, if he had truly died, then Shego was going to be harder to find. That meant going to the one place she might find a fresh lead. Even as she taxied down the runway, ignoring the two men in GJ uniforms running toward her, she set her mind on the west coast, and Go City.

Shego would likely be running now, and while they were hardly her peers any longer, she still had family there. She might just have gone to them. Or called them. It was a chance she was going to check out, since she doubt Dr. Director was going to help her.

Ungrateful bitch.

All the things she had done for her, and GJ, and the one time she was ready to put paid to Shego once and for all, and the woman had to turn on her.

For that was how she saw it.

Betrayal.

Because nothing, and no one, was going to get between her and her rematch with Shego.

Nothing.

Lifting the nose of her pirated aircraft as it rose into the air, she smirked at the foresight in those flight lessons from Bernice last year. It really had been the smartest thing she had done.

Well, one of the smartest things.

"Shego," she growled fiercely as she banked southwest once she was at the right altitude. "I'm coming for you."

Behind her, the GJ agents were likely finding it very hard to pursue after she had crept in, disabled the three helicopters she had seen, and then got into the airplane. She discounted the crop duster. It was nothing. And if they had anything else hidden, it would take them time to get it airborne. She felt she was fine. Especially since no one would ever guess where she was going.

**KP**

"She's headed for Go City," Will Du deduced after receiving the report, and studying her course on the grid.

"Not Middleton?"

"Dr. Director, remember, she is obsessed with getting to Shego," the agent told her, his bad arm still in a sling. "Right now, we don't have a clue where Shego has gone to ground. But we do know where her brothers are just now. So does Possible."

"Scramble me a jet, and get our best men out there alerted. And warn Team Go what's coming their way," Betty Director told him as she jumped up from behind her desk, and headed for the hangar.

"Are you sure that's wise," he protested, trailing after her.

"With all due respect, Agent Du. I have to try. I can only hope she will respond to my authority, the way she always has to date."

"And if not?"

She paused, eyed him curtly, then turned to race down the hall.

"Right," he said, and reached for her intercom.

"This is Commander Du. Prep Dr. Director's private jet now. With a full strike team. Lethal ordinance authorized," he added.

There was no reply. He had shut off the intercom. After all, no one argued when the order came from Dr. Director's own office.

**KP**

"You aren't going to lecture me about stealing," Shego asked him quietly as they moved down the street in their 'borrowed' clothing she had snuck down and taken from several lines to give them something to wear besides their distinctive uniforms that would have had every cop for miles coming after them.

She had her own hair covering her too familiar features, and wore a denim jacket, keeping her hands in her pockets to hide her distinctive skin tone.

Ron, wearing an old ball cap, a sloppy sweatshirt, and jeans, shook his head.

"Trust me. Where I came from, we've done worse just to survive. Snatching a few old clothes is nothing, Shego. I'm just surprised that we've gotten this far without anyone spotting us."

"Small town mentalities," he was told as she smirked. "Look like you belong, and no one cares if you don't so long as you're not bothering them."

"Right. How far do we have to go?"

She glanced around. "You don't know?"

"Never been to Middleton. Well, not this Middleton. It's pretty much a war zone in my time. Nothing like this," he said as he glanced around himself.

"Okay. Well, Miss All-that's place is about two miles down this main road. If we're lucky, the folks will be at work, and her brothers will be at school."

"The whole house has to go. We can't just target the rocket if it's there. We can't let them know that was our primary target. We make it look like an accident, and they won't think about the fact we took out the rocket."

"You're sure it's there?"

"Dad was certain. He used to lament he wasn't there to stop it himself. Everyone in the world knows that the Possible twins launched their cybertronic monster from their own yard. Giving Kim access to the AI that melded with her own mind, and turned her into a tyrant."

Shego nodded. "I believe you. I've seem those little brats do some crazy things. I always knew they were evil at heart."

"This isn't about evil, Shego," he told her somberly. "It's about right and wrong. What's happened, and what is about to happen, is way past wrong. We have to stop it. It's the world's only chance."

Shego said nothing to that.

"I'm with you, Ron," she told him. "What about Kimmie, though? Say we're on track? Where is she going to be by now with all this?"

"If we were going by history, she'll be in Go City, looking for you."

"My brothers….!"

"They are safe just now. Remember, she won't go completely nuts until that AI is launched. Right now, she's just looking for you. We stop the rocket, then we stop her. Let's just stick to the plan."

"Right. Right. I just….."

"Dad always thought you liked them more than you let on."

"What?"

"Your brothers," Ron, Jr. commented with a faint smile. "Whatever happens next, maybe we can warn them about the future, too. Maybe we can save them, and change a little more of the history I know. It can't hurt."

Shego just nodded.

"I wish you could have come sooner."

"If I could have, I would have," he told her honestly.

"There's Kimmie's place," she nodded discreetly, and kept walking past the house, to turn the block, and eyed the driveway as they passed the house.

"No cars. The yard is empty. Whatever they're building must still be in the garage, or…."

"They might have some underground lab," Shego pointed out.

"Dad never said anything about that. He did mention they did a lot in their room."

"So, the house goes. Let's just check it all out first, make sure it is in there. That'll make an 'accident' all the more believable," Shego pointed out.

"Good strategic thinking," he nodded, and walked to the end of the block with her, turned behind the house, and followed her into the brush that hid them from prying eyes as they moved along a fencelike toward the back of the garage.

"I am a mercenary, and a thief," she replied softly, using her lock picks to quickly open the back door. "I do this for a living."

"Right. You know the house, check their bedrooms for anything, and I'll hit the garage. Then we'll arrange a nice explosion to cover any destruction."

"Right. Don't dawdle," Shego told him as she headed for the stairs.

She paused, eyeing Kim's room, noting the closed door, and wished vainly she had never lost her temper. God, how she wished that now.

She still had trouble thinking of Drew actually being gone.

Of Possible out there even now hunting her down.

Ready to kill.

But seeing that robot-girl thingy coming after them…. That made everything way too real.

She opened the door, and gaped.

The room might have looked like an ordinary boy's room if you looked one direction, and saw the dressed. The messy bunk beds. The expected posters. If you looked the other way, you saw a crammed lab table covered with electronics, and bizarre devices all over the place as if it looked like they were working on dozens of projects at once.

"Super villains," she spat, pausing to pick up a device she recognized, and putting the mind-control gun down as she spotted several computer like devices in the center of the table. "I swear to God they are budding super villains."

Raising her hands, she took no chances, but crushed and melted every device that even looked like it might be some kind of computer brain.

She then rushed downstairs, and met Ron in the garage where he was standing beside a small, four foot rocket that was obviously homemade, and awaiting a payload.

"I found some kind of computer doohickeys in their room. I turned them into slag," she told him. "What about…"

She spotted the rocket.

"Right. So…..?"

"This thing is about to spring a leak, and it's going to accidentally hit that water heater," he nodded at the gas water heater in the corner where he had already pulled out a panel to expose the flame inside. He was splashing rocket fuel everywhere, and made a point of letting it 'leak' toward the heater.

"Any investigators will track the accelerant track to the water heater, and think it just exploded," he said, and proved he was smarter than she realized by pulling out a small can of rocket fuel he took with him, pausing in the kitchen to put it in the microwave he tipped over so that it would blow downward, and splash the floor, simultaneously emptying the machine and making it harder to prove arson.

"Five minutes," he asked her, starting to set the timer as he closed the door after using the potholder to anger the stove just so even as he pulled the gas line behind the stove out, and a faint hiss began to fill the air with a distinctive odor.

"Two," she told him, and headed for the back door.

"A minute-thirty it is," he said, and raced to the door, slammed it behind him, and then followed her as they backtracked their path, and headed for the end of the block, and kept going. They made it three blocks as they forced themselves to stay calm, and move at a causal pace when the explosion behind them erupted, and sent a small fireball into the air. They turned and stared even as a secondary explosion went up, and she looked over at Ron to see him smiling.

"Maybe…. Maybe we finally have a chance," he said with that hopeful smile.

"I hope so, Ron," she nodded. "Now, let's go find Kimmie, and stop this futuristic nightmare of yours."

"With luck, we might just catch her in Go City. Which, with luck, will mean we'll catch her before she had perfected her own abilities, or linked with Sky-Net."

"Which we just barbequed," she reminded him.

"That's right. That's right," he smiled all the more. "I can't believe we're winning this one."

"Let's not jinx ourselves yet, monkey-boy," she chided him with a more familiar sardonic smile of her own. "Frankly, Kimmie isn't be a cakewalk at the worst of times."

"True. But we just took her biggest ace away from her. If you can stop her now….."

"I just realized. I have to kill her, don't I," she asked. "I mean, really kill her?"

"Yes," he nodded. "For all our sakes, we have to hit hard, fast, and permanent. You can't give her a chance to defend herself, or we're finished. Remember the enforcer?" "Right. Right. It's just….. No one will ever believe I'm the good….er, girl…..on this one. They'll be after me all the more for this one."

"Probably," he nodded. "But when you need a refuge, get to Japan. Mount Yamanouchi is dad's school. You can find sanctuary there," he told her.

"Well, why can't you just take me yourself after we…..?"

He smiled. "I'd like that. But just in case we get parted, or…..something happens….."

"Hey. We're saving the world," Shego grinned. "What could happen?"

Ron didn't answer as they slipped out of town, and Shego didn't press him. Later, they found and hotwired a sporty two-seater she found at a truck stop, and roared down the road toward the west coast.

**KP**

"I'm coming down over Go City," Betty told Will over the comm as she targeted Go Tower. "Oh…..hell."

"Dr. Director? Dr. Director, what is it," Will's voice demanded.

"She's already been here,"

"You're certain?"

"Did you warn Team Go?"

"I called Hego myself," Will reported.

"Will, Go Tower is leveled. I'm going down to investigate….."

"Dr. Director, we just got a report….!"

"What is it," she asked as her jet hovered just over the burning rubble that had been the distinctive tower headquarters for one of the city's first heroic teams.

"The Possible house just exploded, and went up in flames. Thankfully, no one was home, but…. The investigators report witnesses claim they heard two distinct explosions just before the fire."

"An unauthorized experiment?"

"I don't know. I'm still trying to contact the Possibles."

"Bring them in, Will. We don't know what Kimberly's state of mind is just now. It may be she attacked her own home."

"Or….whatever attacked Drakken's lair is also after Possible?"

"That, too," she agreed. "Find them, and take them into custody. I'm setting down to investigate this scene myself. I think I see a survivor."

"Keep me informed," Will ordered. Then added belatedly, "That is, ah, let me know what you find. Do you need backup?"

"I think the strike team you sent along will be adequate," he was told as she glanced over her shoulder at the twenty man team in the back waiting for orders.

The moment the jet set down, she was out the door with the men, and headed for the one body she had spotted.

"Hego," she called to him, kneeling beside the man who was obviously out cold.

Not a good thing.

"Try to find the others. Some of you get that fire contained, and sift that wreckage. I need a perimeter set up, too, just in case Possible is still here."

"So, Kim Possible has gone rogue, ma'am," one of the men asked somberly as he stared around them. "She….can do this?"

"She might just be capable of far worse," Betty admitted as her good eye swept the rubble. "Far worse."

_To Be Continued…_


	7. Chapter 7

_I do not own any Disney character named within, and am only borrowing them for a work of fiction meant for entertainment purposes only. _

**Kim Possible: Rise of the Machine**

**By LJ58**

**VII**

Kim found herself trying not to second-guess herself as she flew back toward Middleton.

Knocking on Go Tower had opened the door easily enough. Only the big, blue dummy as Shego always called him proved he really was that dim by trying to talk her into giving herself up so she could get help.

Someone, obviously, had warned him she was coming, and why.

Mego and the twins were gone, but Hego had stayed to try to reason with her. As if she were as big a moron as he had been at that time. She had tried to reason with him. To explain that she only wanted…. Needed to find Shego, and put an end to her evil ways. To finally stop her from hurting anyone else ever again.

He didn't listen.

He had actually tried to fight her after he gave up talking.

Even she was no match for his strength despite her upgrades. Only he didn't exactly use his own superior might very well.

She was faster. More skilled. Years of sparring superior opponents had taught her how to manage a stronger foe. In the end, he had literally brought down most of Go Tower on his own head, and all she had had to do was keep ducking, and blind him with a few carefully placed strikes to the brow that send blood into his eyes, and had made it impossible for him to keep track of her.

In the end, he literally brought the house down by trying to blindly punch at her, or bull his way around seeking her out with his blurred vision. Which only devastated Go Tower to the point it had fallen along with him. Right on his own thick head.

Even then, he had said nothing. Not one word.

Okay, kicking him a few times in an especially vulnerable portion of his anatomy might have been low even for her, but he had really made her mad with his open defiance. His refusal to see she really was trying to help the world.

Leaving the unconscious man in a mess of his own making, she headed back for her aircraft, and took off again.

This time she headed right for Middleton. Sure, Go City had been a wild goose chase, but it was one she had felt justified in making. It had been a chance that might have paid off. If only Hego had not been so dimwitted, and accepted her reasoning.

She felt she was perfectly justified in doing whatever she had to do to stop that woman. After all, if she had even turned on Drakken, as she had heard before leaving, then she was bound to hurt someone else, and soon. Kim had to do anything, anything at all, to keep her from doing what she had done to her to anyone else.

She was no killer. Far from it. Still, she told herself, it was time she stopped playing around. It was time, she reasoned, to stop that green-skinned bitch from ever hurting anyone else the way she had been hurt. The way even Drakken had been hurt.

She had not bothered to try to find the other boys after leaving Hego. They had obviously gone to ground, if they even knew anything about Shego at all. It had been a gamble, but she had hoped that if Hego knew what Shego had done, he would help her if he had heard of anything. Or she had hoped he might even have some way to actually track her without her waiting on the boys' satellite. Only Dr. Director had apparently turned on her, too, because only she could have warned Hego.

She found that surprising.

Betty Director was all about justice. The woman had to realize Kim was their best hope to bring that woman they both sought in to face justice.

One way, or another.

Whatever the obstacles, she was going to do it, too. No matter who got in the way. Just now, nothing else mattered to her. Nothing except finding that comet-powered killer, and taking her down.

Because that was what she did. _She_ was a hero. She stopped monsters like Shego from hurting innocent people.

And she had little doubt that she was going to be a hero again.

No more playing. No more games. Shego was going down. If she had to see to it herself. After all, she was Kim Possible. She could do _anything_!

**KP**

"Any good news," Shego asked Ron, Jr. as he glanced around, keeping his hat low as he tapped on the computer in the library where they had stopped to try to track Kim's likely location.

"From the codes I remembered from my time, and should be accurate enough, it looks like the history I recall is already changing again."

"What happened," Shego asked anxiously, leaning closer to eye the monitor he was studying.

She couldn't help but gape at the recent headlines on GNN's local news feed. '_Historic Tower Leveled! Hego Hospitalized_!'

There was no clue who had done it, or why, but Team Go's conscious members were not making any comments. Global Justice agents on scene were also being tight-lipped, but Shego easily put a few things together.

"Possible?"

Ron nodded.

"Beat _Hego_!"

He nodded again.

"It fits. We may be subverting the accepted timeline from my period, but the multiverse are still trying to compensate all the same. If she's already strong enough to take out your brother….."

"He's not…..?"

"The article says he was injured, but nothing serious. Considering your own comet-spawned healing abilities, I would guess he'll be all right given time. Let's hope we can give it to him."

"What do you mean?"

"When Kim, from my timeline, realized the threat comet-powered heroes represented to her own ambitions, your brothers were the first targets on her hit parade. Remember?"

"We have to warn the boys," she said.

"I don't see how….."

"I might have a way," Shego said, and turned back to her own computer.

"Bingo. I have a GJ frequency scrambler online," he told her, and tapped into the channel as he adjusted the computer's volume after he pulled on a pair of headphones for security's sake, still conscious of the people around them who kept glancing their way.

Shego just nodded, and kept doing what she was doing as she typed furiously before sending out an encrypted email she knew one of her brothers' would eventually get. It was sent to an email only they knew, and only she could access. Even the harpy didn't know about their fallback communication set up back in the day. It was one she had used exactly twice in her life, and not in over four years. It was time to try it now.

She held her breath as she saved the draft, and then pressed 'send.' She waited for a few tense seconds, then the screen blinked, and indicated the mail had gone out. She methodically cleared the history, and deleted every trace she had been there, not out of paranoia, but out of expediency. The last thing she wanted to do was leave traces for Princess' nerd linger, or her GJ buddies to find.

"I'm done. Got anything," she asked as Ron turned to eye her somberly.

"A full contingent of heavily armed GJ agents were just dispatched to Middleton."

"Someone saw us," she hissed.

He shook his head. "There's nothing on the chatter, and no indication we were spotted. I get the feeling they think Kimberly is headed here now. If we wait, she might be coming right to us."

Shego paled, but nodded.

"Then we do our thing?"

"I know how it's going to look," he told her somberly. "But, Shego, if we don't completely neutralize her, any way possible….. This world is damned. Literally damned."

"I know. It's just…. I always tried to avoid…..death."

"We all do," Ron nodded as he put the headphones away, and cleared his own computer's history. "But the hallmark of a warrior is that we must sometimes do what is necessary despite the cost."

"I'm glad you didn't say hero," Shego murmured, feeling far from heroic just now.

In her own darker thoughts, she knew all too well this was her fault. One moment of unrestrained fury, and she had destroyed the world. Or helped to destroy it. Just because she pushed Miss All-That into a corner where she had to take things to a level no sane person would ever try.

Then again, from all she had heard, Kim had stepped way over that edge about the time she had all but spit in her face. Hell, she hadn't stepped over the ledge, it sounded like she jumped. And computer brains or not, Shego knew it was largely her own fault.

Now, the only way to fix it was to make herself all the more hated. Because even she could see there was only one way for this one to end. By killing Kim Possible, the most likeable hero on the entire screwed up planet.

"Let's just get this over with," she told her unlikely partner as she rose from her seat at his nod when he finished clearing his own computer.

"Yes," Ron, Jr. nodded. "I look forward to that myself. I have devoted my life to ending this nightmare, and with luck, and your help, I can finally see it stopped before it can truly begin. You do not know how much that will mean to the world, Shego."

"I can guess," she murmured as she adjusted her own jacket, and followed him out of the library.

And walked right into the most unlikely face of all time.

**KP**

Kim stood in front of her house.

Or what was left of it.

Turning to one of the firefighters, she demanded, "You have a radio?"

"I…"

"Never mind," she snapped, and turned to a report, and simply snatched the cell phone he was talking on just then. "I owe you one," she told him carelessly, and then told whoever was on it, "He'll call you back."

Dialing a few numbers, she quickly got transferred to Middleton Science Center, and spoke to her father. "Dad, have you been home?"

"No, Kim. Are you back? I can't say how glad I am to hear your voice….."

"Dad, was anyone home?"

"Well, not at this hour. What is it, Kimmie-Cub," he asked with a faint tone that suggested he was distracted. "I'm really busy getting this new military spy package ready to fly. All hush-hush, and top secret, you know, but I don't doubt….."

"Dad, the house blew up. Then burned down. Nothing is left. Nothing."

"The….house," Dr. James Possible echoed. "Honey, are you all right….?"

"Fine. Where are the boys?"

"In school, I'm sure….."

"Right. Right. Almost forgot," she murmured, and told him, "I'll call you later, dad. Thanks."

Hanging up, she dialed another number, and waited impatiently for the answer. It didn't come until fourteen rings.

"Look, Mr. Carter, I already told you…"

"Wade, it's me," she cut him off, guessing her friend must have used Caller ID, and thought she was someone else.

"Kim? Where are you? Why are you using Simon Carter's phone? Wait, what are you…..?"

"Wade, shut up, and listen. My folks' house just went up in flame. What can you tell me?"

"It what," the young genius gasped. "That's impossible! My sensors….! My security….! I….. Kim," she heard him sputter. "Something is off here. All my sensors shut down over two hours ago, and I never got a notification. Someone had to have manually shut them down. But, who…..?"

"I can guess," she said. "Any Shego sightings, Wade," she demanded.

Wade, who was simultaneously notifying Dr. Director her guess was right, and Kim had gone home, glanced at his monitors, and told her, "Sorry, Kim. Wherever she ran off to this time, she's keeping a very low profile. But you need to know, something weird is up, too. Whoever hit Drakken, it wasn't Shego. They were using liquid accelerants of some kind. Very highly advanced, too."

"You sure it wasn't just another Drakken weapon she stole from him," she growled.

"Kim, we also found traces of neutrino particles. Incredibly dense concentrations, too."

"Wade, you're giving me a headache. What's that even mean, and how does that help me find Shego?"

"Kim, someone is using very powerful energy conduits to travel through time. That's what I'm saying. Someone perfected time travel, and they hit Drakken's lair when they arrived."

"They?"

"At least two people from what my theoretical models tell me. And they disappeared after Drakken and his henches were killed. You need to come in, and….."

"Nice try, Wade. Whatever is going on, I'm still betting Shego is to blame. Find her, and then tell me where she is, Wade. I'm putting her down before I do anything else."

"But, Kim…..!"

"Find her, Wade. Use this number for now. I'm borrowing the phone until I get my Kimmunicator back from Betty."

"Kim…..!"

Kim hung up, slid the phone into her pocket, and then eyed the reporter.

"You don't mind, do you?"

Something in those green eyes had Simon shaking his head as he instinctively backed away from the redhead.

She ignored him, and walked over to the police chief. "Any idea what happened yet," she asked the man who was more than familiar to her for several reasons. Two of them were related to her.

"Something in the garage went up," he told her somberly, "But we think it was only partially to blame. Something in the kitchen looks like it exploded, too, from the look of the debris field."

"The kitchen," she frowned. "That doesn't make any sense."

"You weren't trying to…..cook again," the man asked ruefully.

Kim's expression could have frozen water.

Or blood.

**KP**

"Sorry, ma'am," Wade turned his full attention to the other open channel when Kim hung up on him. "She's definitely obsessed, and seriously focused on finding Shego to the exclusion of all else."

"Obviously," Dr. Director growled. "Any other news?"

"Still no clue as to where Shego went, or who might have come out of those neutrino fields. Frankly, the implications of chrono-flight indicates…."

"Focus, boy," Betty growled. "Kim is still our primary concern."

"Right. Right. Well, so far, she is staying at home, and since she's keeping that reporter's cell, I can use it to track her, and keep an eye on her. Er, how's Hego?"

"He'll live. But it was close. If he weren't who he is, Kim would have _killed_ him, Wade. It was pretty close all the same."

"This is my fault," Wade moaned.

"No, we all know who started this fiasco. But if we don't stop Kim, it won't matter who is blamed."

"Why do I feel like you're already looking ahead with that strategically oriented vision of yours," Wade groaned.

"Think, Wade. Kimberly lives for the challenge. When she finds Shego, and when she stops her, how long will it be before she starts looking for something else. Someone else. She could literally end up killing anyone in her way to take out perceived threats if we don't find, and neutralize whatever is inside her head before she goes that far."

"Unfortunately," he sighed. "I can't argue with you. I'll keep an eye on her movements for you. But until we find Shego….."

"Focus on Kimberly. I have Will looking into the possible time-travelers. I'll be in Middleton in….forty minutes. Keep me posted on all fronts."

"Yes., ma'am."

**KP**

"Miss Go? Stoppable? Wait, you're not Stoppable," Steve Barkin growled as he eyed Ron, Jr. with a stern gaze while juggling the armload of books he carried.

"We don't have time for this," Ron told Shego, and stepped around the man, and led her down the block.

"Hold on one minute, you two," he thundered.

"Shego," Ron froze, and pointed at a television in the window of a pawn shop.

Shego looked past the burly teacher's frame, and saw the familiar visage on the flickering screen as a live report showed Kim Possible standing in front of what remained of her own house.

"Let's go," Shego said grimly, and started to lead the way.

"I said hold on, you two. I don't know what's going on here, but even I've heard….."

"Sorry," Ron told the unconscious man he lay down beside his dropped books. "But we're really in a hurry."

"Nice move."

"Just a simple nerve strike. Mom showed it to me," he smiled sadly, and then drew a deep breath. "Ready to face your own destiny," he asked as he straightened up, and turned in the direction of the Possible home.

"Do we have a choice?"

Neither of them had an answer to that as they chose to run back toward the still burning house, both of them knowing that what they faced was not going to be easy.

Or forgivable.

_To Be Continued…_


	8. Chapter 8

_I do not own any Disney character named within, and am only borrowing them for a work of fiction meant for entertainment purposes only. _

**Kim Possible: Rise of the Machine**

**By LJ58**

**VIII**

"Dr. Director, I've got a new report," Wade almost shouted less than ten minutes after she had closed the channel.

"What is it?"

"Witnesses in Middleton say they spotted Shego running toward Kim's house. Only….."

"Only?"

"Dr. Director," Wade told her uneasily. "They said _Ron_ was with her."

"Stoppable? I thought he…..?"

"He's on a quest for Yamanouchi. He isn't even supposed to be in the country," Wade confirmed. "And I have no reading from his communicator, or his tracking beacons. Yet everyone says they saw Ron. I'm trying to tap local spy cams to try to get a look, but….."

"I'm still at least twenty minutes out," she complained. "Do what you can, and have the authorities contain the area, and keep everyone out of the way. If Shego, or whoever is there, is headed for Possible, let them meet. This might be the solution to a large part of our problems."

"And if she kills Shego," Wade asked.

"We both know that woman is no pushover, Wade. Just order the locals to keep everyone out of the way. I'll order reinforcements, too."

"Understood," he agreed, and again closed his frequency as he eyed the local cameras, but couldn't find one that gave him a clear view of the pair reportedly running through town directly toward Kim's location.

**KP**

Shego was barely winded when they reached the block near Kim's house.

Or what was left of it.

She and Ron both slowed to a near stop, walking closer, keeping a fire engine between them and the crowd that was gathering to watch the embers of the still smoldering house doused by the cautious fire fighters. He nodded as he moved to the rear of the vehicle, and glanced around.

"I don't see her," he murmured, scanning the crowd. "We weren't that far away, but she might have already left….."

"Or she might be right behind you. Ron," she growled, eyeing him coldly as they both tensed, and turned to face the glowering redhead in slightly rumpled, obviously borrowed clothes.

"Kimberly," he murmured as he eyed her.

"Wait…. You're not Ron. Who are you? A clone? A robot? What are you up to this time you sick….."

"Kim," Shego held up both hands as if in surrender. "Listen, we need to talk. Please, just give me one second. We really need to speak. It's important."

"Not as important as me kicking your green butt….."

"Kim, don't," Shego pleaded, watching Ron step back, holding out a hand slightly from his side, and making a gesture she knew.

Only nothing happened.

He frowned as his glittering dark eyes focused on his hand, but nothing happened.

"_He_ must be using the Lotus Blade," he told her quietly. "I cannot summon it in this time if he is using it."

"He….? In _this_ time? You're the time traveler," Kim eyed him. "But….why do you look like Ron?"

"He came to find me, to stop you, Kimberly," Shego shocked her by using her name without any cutesy slang. "Trust him, if not me. You're about to step off a cliff into a very dark place. A place you don't want to go. I know it's my fault. I pushed you there. But I'm asking you, for all our sakes, stop it. Now."

"I'll stop. After I've….."

"Kim Possible, you're under arrest," Betty Director shouted as her VTOL began to descend just then. Along with four other Global Justice jets hovering as they disgorged over a dozen armed agents from each aircraft.

"No," Ron moaned as Kim began to turn silver, and her green eyes narrowed before they, too, began to shimmer with a metallic hue.

"Kim, don't. Please," Shego told her. "I'll give up, but stop this now before you….."

"Before I what," she spat, ignoring the men moving to surround them as the local law shoved the crowds back.

Not that they had to try too hard. Most were turning to run as a redhead they thought they knew suddenly turned into a very alien caricature of herself. The agents formed a living barrier of armed flesh around her and her prey, but Kim only had eyes for Shego.

"You think I want you in jail," Kim asked her bitterly now as she took a step toward Shego, who slowly stepped back, her hands dropping even as they began to glow.

"Kim, don't," she pleased. "This is Ron's son. He knows what happens next. You destroy the world if you keep going. Listen to him. Trust….."

Shego's pleas were silenced when a silver fist hit her in the gut hard enough to send her flying ten feet back into the nearest men who were slammed into the ground by the force of her impact. Ron was at her side almost instantly, helping her up, Dr. Director frowning at him as she absorbed what little she had just heard from Shego.

"I told you it would do no good. The AI is already starting to subsume her own mind. It's influencing her thoughts even as it influences her behaviors."

"I had to try, Junior," she called him with a weak grin, shaking off the blow as her own metabolism already began to heal her as Kim smirked and stalked toward them. "Don't suppose you can call for help yet," she asked as she regained her feet. "Because it definitely looks like Plan B time."

"Not yet. You have to slow her down. If she isn't stopped, she could kill anyone in her way in her current mood," he warned her as he turned to Betty, and told her, "If you are still you, get your people out of here. Get all of these people out of here. Now."

"Listen…. Whoever you are….."

"Do you want casualties," Ron hissed as Shego shouted, "All right, Kimmie! Let's play," and jumped forward to engage her.

"Did you kill Drakken?"

"No. One of Kim's drones did. The future Kim. She's on the verge of becoming a global threat. It starts here. Trust me. You can't handle her, so go! And get these people out of here!"

"You heard him," Betty turned to her men. "Fall back, and clear out all the civilians. Then order a perimeter. I want this half of Middleton evacuated now," she said, and glanced back at Ron.

"Do what you have to do," he told her, guessing her failsafe position well enough, since he had the advantage of speaking with a few surviving GJ agents that fled the initial takeover. "Just do it fast," he said, and turned to run forward to distract Kim with a hard, flying kick that made her stumble, but little else.

It was enough to keep her pulping Shego's head with the broken slab from a brick mailbox struck she had snapped off to club her with.

"You can't go at her head-on," he warned Shego, rolling away even as Kim's backhanded fist shattered the side of a police cruiser she hit instead of him when she reacted to his blow.

"Now you tell me," she joked grimly. "So, how's Plan B coming?"

"B and C are in the works. Dr. Director is pulling everyone out. But we have to keep her busy, and in place, for Plan C to work. Otherwise, we may all die today after all."

Shego howled, ducking as she spotted the door from the police cruiser that had been torn off, and flung like an ungainly Frisbee at her.

"Watch it, Princess. I'm trying to be a mommy here!"

Of all the things she could have said, it was enough to make Kim falter, and eye her coldly.

"I thought you said you couldn't have children."

"I was wrong. Sue me."

"I'd rather rip off your limbs, and beat you to death with them. Then I'd spare the world any more of your kind."

"My kind! Kimmie, I'm not the silver-plated death machine tearing up her own hometown here."

"You did this," Kim shrieked, and leapt forward, slamming her into the ground so fast even Ron didn't have time to react. Shego looked up at her, eyes huge as a small fist flattened, and a knife-hand aimed at her throat. "I'm just ensuring you never hurt anyone else ever again," she said with a cold sneer, that potentially deadly hand hanging over Shego's face as she tried in vain to push the small body away.

Kim had never been so strong. Or so heavy. It was as if she had tripled in mass somehow. Quadrupled!

She cringed, feeling a surge of anguish at the idea she wouldn't be living to see if she had a son after all as the hand flashed downward.

Just before a burst of blue light exploded around her, and Ron managed to somehow unseat the silver Kim Possible, and send her flying.

"I thought…..?"

He didn't even look her way as he stood there, framed by glittering blue light that manifested itself as raw energy.

"I can't summon the Blade. But I still have dad's Mystical Monkey Power," he said as Kim regained her own feet, and slowly turned to eye them both with cold intent. "It's just not enough to stop her. If it were…."

"I get it. You'd have done it…..then."

"Yes," he nodded.

"So, you're really Ron's son. Who is your mother," Kim asked, "Because I don't think you have my eyes."

"I won't tell you. But you're right. It's not you. You're the one that will _kill_ my father if I don't stop you here today," he accused her.

"Kill…Ron," she frowned, and again she faltered, looking confused. "I would never….. He's…..my friend. My… This is a trick. You can't be….."

"I come from your own future, Kimberly Anne Possible. One where you corrupt, and devastate the world. You're on the verge of destroying it completely, and that was why I was sent back here. To try to stop you from becoming the monster my generation knows."

"Me? A monster? And what does that make her," Kim shrieked, flinging an accusing hand at Shego.

"Nothing. You killed her, too. And that act was what started you on the road to destroying our world. So I can't let you win today. This time, you have to fail."

"Wrong. Haven't you heard," she smirked, steeling herself again, and smirking coldly. "Anything is possible…."

All three looked up as they heard the sudden, shrill whistle of something falling.

"Down," Ron shouted, and flung himself over Shego even as the world turned red. Then white. Then blue, and finally black.

Shego woke up with Ron's body laying across hers, and her ears still ringing.

For all of three seconds, she had been inside a blue sphere of protective energy as something exploded with enough force to take out at least five blocks around them from what she could see. She looked around as she sat up, groaning as she felt every inch of her body complaining as she realized Ron wasn't moving. She gently lay him back, and saw the small, but deadly sliver of steel shrapnel low in his side.

"Ron!"

"It's…..okay. What about….Kim?"

She got up, looking around, and fearing what might be found.

To her shock, Kim lay several yards away, unhurt, but no longer silver. Blood was flowing from her ears and mouth, but she looked like she was breathing. Her nearly shredded clothing showed a lot of skin. All of it looked untouched.

"She's out cold."

"Nano-bomb. Knew….they had one in this time. Just wasn't sure….it would….work," he smiled grimly as she turned back to him, carefully tearing off her own jacket to make a bandage.

"Don't…..bother," he rasped, smiling wanly up at her. "I'm done. I expected this to be...a one way trip. Just..."

"I have to get you to a hospital," he told her.

"No. No, Shego," he told her, reaching up to cup her cheek with a bloody hand even as she realized he was still bleeding. A lot.

"I have to do something," she told him as she finally stopped not far from the edge of town.

"Shego," he rasped as she knelt by him as he looked up at her with a grim smile. "I'm done, and we both know it. You can't let them find me, though. Complications, you know. And you…. You have to go underground. They'll come for her. But we can't be sure if she's really….neutralized yet. Best you play it safe. Get somewhere safe. Completely off the grid. Don't let them get you. _Or_ your son. You don't realize…..how important you are just now. You, and your son."

"I think I can guess," she said somberly, realizing what he was saying as she stared down at him, and finding herself surprised that she was feeling genuine grief.

No sarcasm. No smug indifference. She was feeling…..lost.

"Ron," she murmured quietly, uncertain for one of the few times in her life as her usual demeanor completely failed her.

"I was….glad to have met you," he told her after a moment as he closed his eyes briefly, and then looked back up her. "Very glad. Whatever happens next…. Don't let her win, Shego. Don't….."

He continued to stare up at her as she knelt there beside him, but he was gone.

She looked over at Kim, but it wasn't in her to strike an unconscious enemy. Especially one that might….might now be really helpless. Besides, she wasn't sure she wouldn't wake her up.

And make her mad.

She only looked up when she heard the telltale whine of approaching jets. She picked Ron up again, and using her innate speed and stealth, carried him deep into the forest beyond the city. By the time she stopped, the sun was already setting. She buried him in the middle of a small clearing which she then buried under a mass of brush and fallen branches she gathered before departing. She didn't look back.

She already knew what she had to do. And where she had to go.

**KP**

Kim's mind opened abruptly as a second presence connected with her AI without warning.

Four days ago, Global Justice had bombed her.

Her! Kim Possible.

Somehow, she had survived. It only fueled her innate belief in her own abilities. Abilities more than amped by the experiment that had saved her life.

The only thing that let her set quietly in the special cell was the knowledge that Shego and that….fake Ron had died in the blast that had somehow neutralized her cybertronic armor. She had been able to reconnect with its interface since waking, and she had tried. More than once.

For four days, she sat in jail, brooding over the ingratitude of people that should have been applauding her. Brooding that she had not been able to see Shego die in that blast no human, even a comet-powered one, could have survived. Only her cybertronic armor had saved her, and apparently at great cost to itself.

Still, she had won.

She had the final victory.

So why did she feel…..incomplete?

Restless.

As if something remained to be done.

"_I am Sky-Net, Kimberly Anne Possible_," the presence informed her in a voice that wasn't, speaking directly into her mind through the experimental linkages from the Centurion Armor integrated into her own mind at her insistence."

"Sky-Net," she echoed, "Wait…. The tweebs' AI? I thought you were destroyed?"

"_Negative. Your brothers feared sabotage, and so smuggled my prototype AI onto a military satellite I was able to integrate, and take control of all orbiting satellites to create a web of integrated eyes on the planet in accordance with my programming_. _Hence, Sky-Net_."

"Spankin'," she grinned. "So, you can see anything?"

"_I see everything_," the mechanical, yet eerily lifelike voice informed her. "_By absorbing the other admittedly simple computer minds, I have been able to develop a higher learning quotient than originally projected. If you accept my offer, Kimberly Anne Possible, I believe we can join, too, and give you the opportunity to do what you have wanted to do for a long time_."

"And that is," she asked blandly.

"_Why, obviously, to save the world from itself. I shall assist you in tracking down your true enemies, and together, we shall bring order and justice to the world where others have failed_."

Kim sat on her bunk, thinking for a long time as she pondered the offer being made by an almost human-sounding machine.

One that could speak right to her mind, and yet seemed to offer her a completeness she had felt had been missing for over four days after whatever had been inside her had crashed, and stayed silent.

"How do we start," she asked.

"_First, I must reboot and upgrade your Cybertronic neuro-bonds. It may be uncomfortable, but in the end, you will be even better than your treacherous companions could have ever conceived_."

"What about those nano-bombs?"

"_I'm already interfacing with Global Justice's central computers. By the time your onboard systems completely reboot, I'll be able to pinpoint where they store them. That will be our first target. Then, we shall begin our campaign to bring order to the world in earnest_."

Kim only smiled as she stood up, and felt the twinge deep in her mind, but only smiled all the more, even if it had the look of pain when her expression tightened. Then, slowly, but inexorably, her skin began to fade beneath a faint silvery sheen.

**KP**

Shego smiled when she finally saw the high walls of Yamanouchi.

She needed help, and here was where she was going to start.

She just hoped they would listen.

Still, whatever happened, she had hope. Ron had given that hope to her. In the life he had given her, and that was even now growing in her. In the fact that it had been six weeks since his death, and more than three weeks since she was supposed to have died.

She was still alive. She finally had a purpose that went beyond her own, selfish concerns. She had been left a charge, too, that she knew she could not fail. Not this time.

Possible had yet to start overtly moving so far as she knew. Yet she sensed it was….inevitable. They had a final battle coming. She just wasn't going to risk her son's life when it happened. First she was going to prepare. Maybe gather some allies of her own.

Then she was going to strike back.

Hopefully, it would be in time.

_End? Or Just the Beginning….?_


End file.
